The Adventures of Billy Topsail

"Stand up, b'y!" he shouted in Archie's ear. "Put your arm on my shoulder. I'll help you along."

"No," Archie muttered. But despite this protest he was lifted up; then he said: "Give me your hand. I'm all right."

Billy wasted no words. He locked his arms about Archie's middle, lifted him, and staggered forward against the wind.

The wind had fallen somewhat, and he made some progress. But the burden was heavy, and twice he fell. Then he heard Bill o' Burnt Bay's voice, and he shouted a response, but the wind carried the words away. He could hear Bill, who was to windward, but Bill could not hear him. So when the call came again, he marked the location and staggered in that direction.

"Oh, Billy! Oh, Archie!"

The voice was nearer – and to the left. Billy Topsail changed his course. The next cry came from the right again. Was the wind deceiving him? Or was Bill changing his place? Then came a ringing cry near at hand.

"Bill!" screamed Billy Topsail.

"Here! Where is you?"

Bill's great body emerged from the darkness. He cried out joyfully as he rushed forward, took Archie from Billy's arms, and slung him over his shoulder.

"Praise God!" he muttered tremulously, when he felt life stirring in the small body.

He put his face close to Billy Topsail's and looked steadily into the boy's eyes for an instant; and no words were needed to say what he meant.

But where was the hummock? Bill looked about.

"'Tis there," said Billy, pointing ahead.

Bill shook his head. His homing instinct, to which he had trusted his life in many a fog and night, told him otherwise. Reason entered into his decision not at all; he merely waited until he was persuaded that his face was turned in the right direction. Then he started off unhesitatingly. He had found the harbour entrance thus in many a thick summer night when his fishing punt rode a trackless sea.

"Take hold o' me jacket, b'y," he said to Billy. "Mind you stick close by me."

For some time they wandered without seeing any sign of the hummock. Bill's heart sank lower and lower; for he knew that if they did not soon find shelter, Archie would die in his arms. At last Bill caught sight of a light – a dull, glowing light.

"Is that a fire?" he asked.

"'Tis the hummock!" Billy cried. "'Tis Osmond with the fire goin'. 'Tis he! 'Tis he!"

"We're saved," said Bill.

Once in the lee of the hummock, they roused Archie from his stupor, and warmed him over the fire, which Osmond, after many failures, had succeeded in lighting. They broke the cross-piece of the tow line in two, took another pelt from the pack, and made two fires. The wood was like the wick in a candle; it blazed in the blubber, and was not consumed. Between the fires they huddled together, with Archie in the middle. Their bodies warmed the lad, and he slumbered snugly, quietly, through the night. Billy Topsail, more sturdy of body, if not of spirit, kept awake, and had a part in the talk with which each tried to cheer the others through the fearful, dragging hours.

"'Tis the day," said Bill, at last, pointing to the east.

The wind abated as the dawn advanced, and the snow ceased to fall. Light crept over the field, and men appeared from behind clumpers of ice. Group signalled to group. All made their way to the place where the ship had landed them, a dozen men were already clustered – a gaunt, haggard, frost-bitten crowd. The terrors of the night still oppressed them, and, through weeks, would haunt their dreams.

They counted their number. Fifty-nine living men were there; and there was one dead body – that of Tim Tuttle of Raggles Island, who had strayed away from his fellows and been lost. And thus they awaited the full break of day, while eyes were strained into the departing night. Where was the ship? Had she survived? These were the questions they asked one another.

"What's that patch o' black?" Bill o' Burnt Bay asked. "Due west, lads – a mile or more off?"

"Sure, it looks like the ship," some of the men agreed.

As the light increased, the storm passed on. A burst of sunshine at last revealed the Dictator, lying on the ice, listed far to port. The broken ice in which she had been caught, they learned afterwards, had been forced under her, and she had been lifted out of danger when the fields that nipped her came together.

When it is said that old Captain Hand welcomed his crew with open arms, and embraced Archie – the meanwhile searching through all his pockets for a handkerchief, which he could not find – there remains little to be told. He was more haggard than the rescued men. What depths his brave spirit sounded on that long night are not to be described.

"Well, b'y," was what he said to Archie, "you're back, is you?"

"Safe and sound, cap'n," the boy replied, wearily, "and hungry."

"Send the cook for'ard with the scoff!" roared the captain.

Before noon, all the men were safe aboard, and the ice was breaking up. When the Dictator settled softly into the water, at the parting of the fields, the pelt was stowed away. She had no difficulty in making the open sea; and thence she set forth in search of other floes and other seal packs.

The Dictator made Long Tom Harbour without mishap. There it was made known that the name of Billy Topsail of Ruddy Cove was "on the books," and not a man grumbled because the lad was to share with the rest. There, too, old John Roth, to whom two "white coats" had been promised, claimed the gift of Archie, and was not disappointed. And there Archie said good-bye to Billy for the time.

"I'll see you this summer," he said. "Don't forget, Billy. I'll spend a week of vacation time with you at Ruddy Cove."

"No," Billy replied. "You'll spend it at New Bay. Sure, me name is on the books, an' I'm goin' after lobsters with me own skiff in July."

"I'll go with you, if you'll take me," said Archie. "And I can never, never forget that you – "

"Sure," Billy Topsail interrupted, flushing, "you'll go with me t' New Bay. An' times we'll have of it!"

"Good-bye!"

"Good-bye, b'y!"

And so they parted on terms of perfect equality.

That summer, Billy Topsail went to New Bay. But it was not in a skiff; it was in a swift little sloop, especially made to be sailed by a crew of one. It came North, mysteriously, from St. John's, to the wonder of all Green Bay; and its name was Rescue. And a letter came North for Bill o' Burnt Bay: which, when he read it, stirred him to the profoundest depth of his rugged old heart, for he roared in a most unmannerly fashion that he'd "be busted if he'd take a thing for standin' by such a lad!" In reply to a second letter, however, Bill said he would "be willin' t' take it on credit, if he'd be 'lowed t' pay for it as he could." So that is how Bill o' Burnt Bay came to sail to the Labrador in his own fore-and-after, when the fish were running.

And, once, Sir Archibald Armstrong turned to his son. "Well, my boy," he said, slowly, "I've been wanting to ask you a question. What do you think of your shipmates?"

"I think they're heroes, every one!" Archie answered.

"Do you think you now know the difference between a man and a tailor's lay-figure?"

"Oh, sir," Archie laughed, "I'll never forget that!"

Billy Topsail had never needed to learn.

1

In Newfoundland the law requires that all dogs shall be clogged as a precaution against their killing sheep and goats which run wild. The clog is in the form of a billet of wood, weighing at least seven and a half pounds, and tied to the dog's neck.

2

"The early literature of natural history has, from very remote times, contained allusions to huge species of cephalopods, often accompanied by more or less fabulous and usually exaggerated descriptions of the creatures… The description of the 'poulpe,' or devil-fish, by Victor Hugo, in 'Toilers of the Sea,' with which so many readers are familiar, is quite as fabulous and unreal as any of the earlier accounts, and even more bizarre… Special attention has only recently been called to the frequent occurrence of these 'big squids,' as our fishermen call them, in the waters of Newfoundland and the adjacent coasts… I have been informed by many other fishermen that the 'big squids' are occasionally taken on the Grand Banks and used for bait. Nearly all the specimens hitherto taken appear to have been more or less disabled when first observed, otherwise they probably would not appear at the surface in the daytime. From the fact that they have mostly come ashore in the night, I infer that they inhabit chiefly the very deep and cold fiords of Newfoundland, and come to the surface only in the night." – From the "Report on the Cephalopods of the Northeastern Coast of America," by A. E. Verrill. Extracted from a report of the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, issued by the Government Printing Office at Washington. In this report twenty-five specimens of the large species taken in Newfoundland are described in detail.

3

Stories of this kind, of which there are many, are doubted by the authorities, who have found it impossible to authenticate a single instance of unprovoked attack.

4

A jigger is a lead fish, about three inches long, which spreads into two large barbed hooks at one end; the other end is attached to about forty fathoms of stout line. Jiggers are used to jerk fish from the water where there is no bait.

5

At this point it may be of interest to the reader to know that the incident is true.

6

Sealing.

7

A floe of pans so forcibly driven by the wind as to be crowded into layers.

8

It is related by the survivors of the steamship Greenland disaster, of some years ago, in which sixty lives were lost, that one man was in this way carried half a mile over the ice. When he was found, he had gone mad.